Bhooter Bhabishyat Bengali Comedy

Movie Review: Bhooter
Bhabishyat- The Future of the Ghost (Bangla)

Bhooter Bhabishyatdoes not have eerie special effects or
horrific visuals and sinister sounds to create synthetic fear among the
audience. It throws up the fun-filled world of ghosts who struggle for a roof
above their heads constantly threatened by real-estate sharks and blood-sucking
promoters. The ghosts live in the abandoned mansion of zamindar Darpanarayan
Choudhury killed by dacoits. The ghosts span the history, politics and
sociography of
Bengal beginning with the
battle of Plassey where a cook in Siraj-Ud-Daulah’s kitchen was killed in the
battle when forced into the army. The common link among them is that they all
died unnatural deaths.

The skinny Muslim cook hates the British officer Ramsay, killed by
mistake in a bomb blast when the target was someone else. Kadalibala, a famous
singing star of 1940s black-and-white films, is decked up in zardozi saris
and jewellery and sings her old film numbers in Kanan Devi’s nasal drawl. She
had committed suicide when her paramour married someone else. Koel is a
modern-day girl who jumped off the tenth floor when her father refused to let
her marry her boyfriend. A young member of the Bangle Band died of a drug
overdose but annoys the ‘period’ ghosts who do not care for his music. A
military officer who died in the Kargil war of 1999 bores everyone with his
tall tales of bravery. The rickshaw-puller who was mowed down by a speeding car
keeps lamenting about his poverty. A Bangladeshi Hindu refugee could not stay
up on a tree because of his gout after he was shot in communal killings in his
country.

A Naxalite leader killed in police firing while trying to escape
narrates the entire story of a first time filmmaker who has chosen the mansion
for the setting of his film. The ghosts surf their very own social networking
site SpookBook to hire Hathkata Kartik (the armless Kartik) the dead contract
killer to scare away the real estate promoter who wants to turn the mansion
into a shopping mall. There is an ‘item number’ with the lyrics drawn from the
item girl-ghost’s personal tragedy of having been burned by her husband. The
ghosts also go on a picnic. The costumes the ghosts wear are in keeping with
their social status and the time they belonged to when they were alive. The zamindarhas no idea what a ‘shopping malls’ is while the actress is aghast that
there is so much hoo-haa about a new bazaar while she was labeled a bazaar woman
in her time.

The dialogue, music, lyrics and acting by the ensemble actors make Bhooter…one of the most intelligent and satiric comedies one has seen in a long
time, heralding the entry of Anik Dutta who has written the pun-laced dialogue,
plus the scripts and the lyrics. Indraneel Ghosh’s art direction takes care of
the antique furnishings of the mansion. Avik Mukherjee’s cinematography
effectively plays around with the dark shades of intrigue while Arghya Kamal
Mitra’s editing caresses the time-loops, curves and cuts and wipes between the
interactions of the living and the dead.